How does an ‘exit’ poll differ from a normal opinion poll?
A12 An ‘exit’ poll records how votes have been cast, it does not anticipate how people will vote, as other types of opinion polls do. For an ‘exit’ poll a sample of voters is interviewed as they leave carefully selected polling stations during the day of an election. Usually, interviewers select the respondents by deciding to interview one in a pre-selected number of voters (for example, one in ten). To ensure the results are representative of the whole population, they are reweighted (mathematically adjusted) once the survey is complete. The record of the exit polls has been remarkably accurate in the last two elections.
